Organisers begin countdown confident France will come together despite recent raft of strikes and civil disobedience
At the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Games, televisions predict the future. On one screen, Olympic athletes are travelling along the Seine in a huge flotilla, cheered on by close to half a million people in a mocked-up version of what organisers promise will be the most spectacular opening ceremony in history. On another, breakdancers are spinning at dizzying speeds on the Place de la Concorde. A third video mashes action with whooping crowds, tricolour flags, and more of Paris’s greatest landmarks.
The message is stirring and direct: after all the problems that blighted the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, from spiralling costs to corruption and Covid, the Paris Games – which start a year on Wednesday – will be a glorious reboot. Even if the threat of strikes, civil disobedience and terrorism still linger uneasily over the French capital.
